By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

Wendy Bowles knows from experience what it's like to work with mostly male co-workers.

Within the whole of the Kansas Department of Wildlife Parks, for instance, there are only four women besides her who work alongside male staffers in the field, caring for state parks.

Her job as a public service administrator and conservation worker at Kanopolis State Park, southwest of Salina, includes maintaining 29 miles of park trails, giving public programs and tracking and photographing wildlife.

She drives a comfortably weathered agency pickup and can handle with ease the controls of a skid loader used to haul materials for trail building. When she's not outside, she's inside at her desk doing mapping, designing brochures and writing grant proposals that to date have brought in $500,000 for the park.

In short, there's not much that she can't do as a woman compared to her male colleagues, Bowles told several groups of teenage girls attending Thursday's TWIST Career Day at Kansas State University at Salina.

TWIST stands for Teen Women in Science and Technology. The career day enabled teenage girls from area schools to attend short Powerpoint presentations and briefings from professionals in fields such as engineering, aviation and wildlife biology.

The women talked about what they do and the education needed to get hired.

From Bowles the students also got a bit of job-related and personal advice. For example, she talked about appearance at work. She said she and most of her fellow female park workers take the time every morning to put on makeup and fix their hair -- "even though we know we might end up covered with mud by the end of the day or we might be covered from head to toe with grease, or we might be fighting fire that day. 'Cause I guarantee if you don't take the time to be presentable, the guys will never respect you. That sounds ridiculous, but it's true," Bowles said.

Bowles found her way to Wildlife and Parks, where she's worked for 19 years, from a prior job as a field biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Before that, while attending college at Colorado State University, she had an internship with the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

As an intern she helped game wardens trap bears, cooked and ate rattlesnake, did radio tracking on sharp-tailed grouse and monitored bighorn sheep.

Don't be too set on a career path, she advised. She settled into natural resource management after first taking up studies to become a veterinarian, then a game warden.

"Know that plans can change, and that's all right, too," she said.

Marysville sophomores Kelsey Claeys, 16, and Brandi Pacha, 15, attended Bowles' presentation.

"I like nature," Claeys said. The pair were headed next to a discussion of careers in zoology. The career day was helpful in getting them to think more broadly about the career paths that are available, they said.

Aviation is also a field with growth opportunities for young women, especially those desiring to learn to fly. National statistics show that in 2001, only 4 percent of pilots were female, said Kate Fraser and Shae Blackwell, pilots at the school. Fraser, a senior, also is a flight instructor.

"We're not complaining, but we'd like to see that increase a lot," Fraser said.

KSU at Salina is ranked as one of the top five universities in the nation for aviation instruction, Blackwell said. At present, tuition and fees at the university total $2,924 a semester for a student taking at least 12 hours, said Dixie Schierlman, associate dean.

Aviation students pay additional fees of $94 an hour for the plane for each hour of flight time, and $30 an hour for the instructor.

There are significant scholarship and financial aid opportunities for female students interested in pilot training or other aviation careers, Schierlman said.

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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Woman of Steel says....
I'm a little amazed by the statement about doing makeup and hair and agree with Jamestown on this one. I also work in a field where women do not usually venture and respect doesn't come from how my hair looks, it comes from getting as dirty and working as hard as my male co-workers.
1/9/2009

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Jamestown says....
Put on make up and look presentable or the guys won't respect you? Why didn't she say dress sexy and keep your weight down, too? I thought we were getting past those kinds of ideas of instilling HOW YOU LOOK instead of who you are and how you act. What about be yourself? Be a person in yourself. Treat people well and with respect -- and PEOPLE will respect you.
1/9/2009

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